Rape Victim's Choice: Risk AIDS or Health Insurance

[caseymoz]

Source: Huffington Post

Christina Turner feared that she might have been sexually assaulted after two men slipped her a knockout drug. She thought she was taking proper precautions when her doctor prescribed a month's worth of anti-AIDS medicine.

Only later did she learn that she had made herself all but uninsurable.

. . . Even after she explained the assault, the insurers would not sell her a policy because the HIV medication raised too many health questions. They told her they might reconsider in three or more years if she could prove that she was still AIDS-free.


Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/21/insurance-companies-rape-_n_328708.html

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Note: there was no evidence that she had the illness. The doctor prescribed it as a precaution, and it was more than likely, the proper medical precaution to take. Yet, she can't get insurance for it.

Outrageous and insulting.

[uppityperson]

1. k&r

[Liberal_in_LA]

3. K&R

shocking

[Alcibiades]

2. Rather paradoxically she would be insurable

provided the did the medically wrong thing and not take the meds. I suppose that the insurance companies really want folks to get no testing or treatment: that would really lower their costs.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

4. Insurers find every which way to avoid paying for their "service" to redress human tragedy.

Insurance is just a BIG, FAT SCAM!!!

ANY "service" to human tragedy should be NON-PROFIT. It is a PUBLIC SERVICE, not a gadget to be manufactured and sold on the "free market".

It is time to draw distinctions, clear distinctions between gadgets and human services!!!

[iamjoy]

5. Rape is a Pre-Existing Condition

add it to the list.

[comtec]

6. wasnt that in the news a few weeks ago?

literally rape was/is considered a pre-existing condition..

Sorry, it was spousal abuse.
like there's a fucking difference
both are horrible violence against women!

To deny because of this is just... fucking evil!!!

sexist, and pure evil!

I hope this woman sues and gets a billion dollars!

[harry_pothead]

7. These kinds of stories need to be *constantly* rammed home by Obama and progressives.

[fasttense]

8. Only in America is it legal for corporations to make a profit

by NOT providing the service their customers pay for.

[mbperrin]

11. And that is why healthcare is not a private product. It IS a public good!

Single payer universal is still the actual answer.

[caseymoz]

12. I'm with you on that.

Private insurance is the most wrong way to do health and medicine. Because the company's interest is always going to be in not paying for health problems.

[Fedja]

9. Simply incredible

Note: there was no evidence that she had the illness. The doctor prescribed it as a precaution, and it was more than likely, the proper medical precaution to take. Yet, she can't get insurance for it.

That note just might be the saddest part of the story. It implies, even if slightly, that whether or not she actually was HIV positive bears any relevance. The current system is so far gone that even the proponents of fair and inclusive healthcare accept some level of denial of rights as acceptable.

Not only is it irrelevant that she was on the meds, it's equally irrelevant why she got them, who she got them from, and whether or not she was HIV positive or not. She's a human being and deserves full access to healthcare. If she has any conditions, present or past, she is in that much MORE of a need for healthcare access. Hell, her being HIV positive would mean that she should get priority over someone who doesn't have dramatic life-threatening conditions.

**I had to go back and delete a number of expletives before publishing. Those of you who have no quarrel with graphic language, feel free to imagine one or two juicy additions to just about every sentence.

[caseymoz]

14. And I agree one hundred percent that contracting HIV should not be the issue.

But I was writing about the private system's senselessness, showing that it was not even well-reasoned within its own logic. If the object was to exclude those with HIV from insurance, it does not follow that they exclude somebody receiving an anti-HIV drug at one time, and who turned out to be negative.

And as heinous in inhumane as denying insurance to a rape-victim is, this has other bad implications. The evidence I understand is that HIV is most communicable in the first weeks after it has been contracted. The virus reproduces at an extreme rate and it takes a few weeks for the immune system to rev up and counter it. From a public health standpoint, it might be well advised for a rape victim to take anti-HIV drugs.

[Fedja]

16. Don't get me wrong :)

I wasn't trying to be critical of you at all. I was merely pointing out that you reasoning it in relative terms was the best indication how far gone the system is.

[Vidar]

10. K&R

[Dogtown]

13. K&R n/t

[Soylent Brice]

15. K&R

the insurance industry is really going out of their way these days...